•Calls longer than 3 minutes to attract surcharge
•Says economy facing stagflation
Mobile phone users will be in for hard times if proposal by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele to the federal government to introduce mobile phone call tax becomes a reality.
The Governor, who broke the news at the 2016 Annual Bankers’ Dinner organised by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) on Friday night, in Lagos, said such tax, targeted at the middle, upper class and long phone call makers, can generate N100 billion annually into the federal government coffers.
Speaking on the theme: “Policy options for reversing Nigeria’s economic downturn” he said the country’s economy is currently facing a classical case of “stagflation” and although the 2016 budget is well on track to tackle it, there is need to boost revenue generation base though increased taxes.
He suggested that government could explore opportunities for more revenues to wriggle out of stagflation and recession by introducing a negligible telecom surcharge to be paid by initiator of a telephone call.
“There are several ways we can raise additional revenue to finance the increased expenditure that is needed to engender fast and sustainable growth in the economy. I think we can consider introducing a negligible telecom surcharge to be entirely borne by the initiator of a call. In order to protect the poor and vulnerable amongst us, we could structure it to only take effect after the third minute of talk. Some analyses have indicated that the government could earn about N100 billion per annum from this alone,” he stated.
Emefiele explained that the surcharge will mainly be borne by middle and upper class people since many poor people do not make calls for more than three minutes.
20 November, 2016
